- What is semiology or semiotics?
- Role of semiology or semiotics
- Medical semiology
- Semiology and linguistics
- Semiotics and semiology
- Semantics and semiology
We explain what semiology or semiotics is, its function and its relationship with semantics. Also, what is medical semiology.
What is semiology or semiotics?
Semiology or semiotics is the discipline which is responsible for the study of signs, that is, the ideas that we associate in our mind with different elements of the reality. The signs, in the communicative process, are used by a sender to convey meaning to a receiver.
Some sign systems of everyday life are languages, traffic signs, military signs, language deaf-mute, mathematical signs, cryptographic messages, symbols of a Condition.
For students of semiology, all social reality is articulated in systems of signs that form a "semiosphere" or symbolic space in which human life takes place. Ferdinand De Saussure (1857-1913) proposed the term "semiology" to name the science that studies the use of signs in social life.
Role of semiology or semiotics
The function of semiology is to analyze the effects that signs produce on the society. This makes it a very powerful tool for investigating the symbolic functioning of the can, the representations of the cultural industry and the way in which the media they influence our perception of what happens in our society.
In psychology, we speak of "semiotic function" to refer to the ability to represent something absent through the use of signs. This notion was developed by the Swiss epistemologist, psychologist and biologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) and is defined as the ability (developed in the child from the age of two) to be able to give meaning to something through signifiers.
Medical semiology
Medical semiology is the study of the signs and symptoms of a disease as they can be observed or recorded by a doctor. It is a knowledge that has developed over the centuries and has been consolidated as a discipline autonomous in the first decades of the 20th century.
Medical semiology suggests that symptoms and syndromes are the manifestations of the disease perceived by a patient. The external and visible manifestations are called signs. Medical semiology seeks, identifies and hierarchizes these manifestations, in order to reach a diagnosis.
The instruments of medical semiology are the questioning of the patient (or anamnesis), the general or particular physical examination and eventually the evaluation of medical laboratory tests. This whole process implies that the physician must possess a broad knowledge of the most diverse diseases in order to formulate a hypothesis solid diagnosis.
Semiology and linguistics
Semiology or semiotics studies all sign systems, whether they are linguistic or not. It was Saussure who argued that linguistics is subordinate to semiology.
However, this subordination of linguistics to semiology was questioned by the French semiologist Roland Barthes (1915-1980), who argued during the 1960s that semiology should be considered as subordinate to linguistics since although he works on elements non-linguistic will always have to use the language to analyze them.
To the above should be added what was proposed by Umberto Eco (1932-2016), who argued that the totality of human knowledge is grouped into three fields: ethics, physics and semiotics. This undoubtedly places semiology above all other disciplines that deal with language.
But in the end, there is no general agreement on whether linguistics is subordinate to semiology or vice versa.
Semiotics and semiology
Historically there have been two traditions to name the science of signs: that of Saussure who used the term "semiology" and that of Peirce who chose the word "semiotics".
Although there are those who establish differences between the field of study of semiology and semiotics, this conflict it was resolved in 1969 with the creation of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, from which it was established that both concepts can be used synonymously (although “semiotics” is preferred).
Semantics and semiology
Semantics and semiology coincide in the study of meaning. However, semantics is the part of linguistics that studies the meaning and meaning of linguistic expressions.
On the contrary, semiology studies all the sign systems in which social life takes place, including the linguistic expressions that semantics studies. In this way semantics is part of semiology.